Art: An Analytical Stillness

A candle flame, streaming upward from its stubby pillar of wax, was one
of the favorite images in 17th century European art. Vulnerable to a
breath, shedding its modest light and resolving the threats of darkness
into rational form, it became a metaphor of human consciousness itself.
Indeed, a tradition of the "night piece" runs back to the late 15th
century, when Leonardo set down his precepts for painting dramatic
firelit groups. Rembrandt in Holland and Caravaggio in Rome produced
unforgettable examples of the genre. But the artist whose work is most
intimately...